


The Castle and the Lake

by glim



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: 19th Century, Alternate Universe - Historical, Community: summerpornathon, M/M, Romanticism, Team Gluttony
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-20
Updated: 2012-07-20
Packaged: 2017-11-10 08:16:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/464153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glim/pseuds/glim
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Lancelot longs for Merlin like he longs for ink and paper.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Castle and the Lake

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Summerpornathon 2012 [Challenge 4: Minor Characters](http://summerpornathon.livejournal.com/81719.html).

"Have you heard what they've said? Of course you haven't, you're hardly awake, here, I'll read you the best of the reviews."

Lancelot sits up as Merlin climbs onto the bed and into Lancelot's lap, fully clothed and breathless with excitement. Merlin brings the weather with him, the scent of rain in his wild, dark hair and the chill of the early London morning in the folds of his greatcoat and half-tied cravat. 

"Inspired, incandescent, impossible. _Impossible_ , that's my favorite." Merlin reaches his arm out of the way while Lancelot pushes his coat off one shoulder, then shuffles the papers and letters from his left to right hand so Lancelot can push it off the other. "They're all true, though." 

"Inspired is probably the most true," Lancelot says and leans in to kiss the side of Merlin's neck. He waits for a sigh, and noses in behind Merlin's ear to inhale the scent of skin and smoke and rain. "Since the book is as much yours as it is mine." 

"Nobody cares about the frontispiece, it's your words, your poems, all brilliant." Merlin brandishes the papers in front of Lancelot before tossing them aside to flutter to the floor. "All impossibly brilliant." He rocks his hips into the cradle of Lancelot's lap and gives another sigh; he's already half-hard, his erection a warm press against Lancelot's palm. Lancelot feels himself grow hard at the contact and buries his face back in Merlin's neck to lick the rain and sweat from his skin. 

Lancelot longs for Merlin like he longs for ink and paper, like he longs for words to spool from the ink onto the paper and measure out the meter of his desire. He'd met Merlin in France, then again in Switzerland, and _The Castle and the Lake_ had been written in a frenzy during their time in Lausanne. Hidden between lines and letters and scrawled into the margins of his manuscript he'd written the story of those three weeks and how Merlin had drawn half of his poems before Lancelot had even written them, how Merlin had drawn the words from him. Buried further still is the story of how their bodies moved against each other, the taste of Merlin's skin and the slide of Lancelot's hands over both their pricks, the soft moan of arousal Lancelot would give when woken by Merlin's mouth on his erection, the slickness of their bodies, moving against and unfolding around each other. 

He takes them both in hand now, pushing aside the bed linens and unbuttoning Merlin's trousers to thumb against the head of Merlin's cock. Lancelot's not even sure how awake he is yet; sleep still clings to his senses and Merlin's words seem unreal. His body is warm and solid, though, and the feel of his cock sliding against Lancelot's sums up all Lancelot wants from reality before the day starts. He strokes Merlin and strokes himself, lets warmth gather in the pit of stomach, then surges up to kiss Merlin as it uncoils through him. 

The kiss lasts longer lasts than their breath and Merlin is panting when Lancelot breaks it; he keeps his mouth and even his tongue close to Merlin's though, catching Merlin's lips against his own with every other stroke. Merlin closes his eyes, rests his forehead against Lancelot's, and tangles his fingers with the ones that close over his cock. Lancelot kisses the 'please' from Merlin's mouth before he's finished saying it and keeps his hand on Merlin until they're both sticky and sated. 

~

Later, Lancelot watches Merlin finally undress and come back to bed. "If you'd publish the other illustrations--"

"No. No, those are for you." Merlin tucks his body next to Lancelot's, half-curled, and nuzzles against his chest. "Nobody else would want to understand them." 

Half of London thinks him mad, broken by the events after the revolution in France, his art powered by opium and sleepless nights. Someday, though, Lancelot will tell another story, the one of how Merlin found him, broken and wordless and nearly insane because of it, and how Merlin bound their love and their longing to their very lives, to their words and art.


End file.
